Thursday, February 11, 2010

Lighthouses and Buoys - Additional Plea

The DOJ announced yesterday (here) that John Warwick pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal indictment charging him with conspiracy to pay bribes to former Panamanian officials to obtain contracts to maintain lighthouses and buoys along Panama's waterways.

For additional posts about this case, including the prior guilty plea of Warwick's co-conspirator Charles Jumet (see here). Warwick and Jumet are both associated with Virginia-based Ports Engineering Consultants Corporation (PECC).

The indictments against both individuals are substantively similar and involve a rather complex and convoluted way of getting the "thing of value" to the "foreign official." According to the indictments, Warwick and Jumet designated certain corporate entities as shareholders of PECC and allowed the "foreign officials" to receive dividend payments and bearer shares from these entities.